1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to the field of communications, in particular to a terminal and a method for controlling the audio alarm of the terminal.
2. Description of Prior Art
The rapid advance of communications technology has endowed mobile phones (cell phones) with numerous merits, such as convenience, quickness, flexibility and limitless in terms of time and location, which gives rise to a remarkable prevalence of such mobile cells among general users and a fast growth in the number of handset users. Mobile phones, one of the symbols for the Age of Information Technology, have gradually stepped into people's daily life and work as an indispensable tool. Also, some other devices, such as personal computers and notebook computers, can be utilized to make an IP call. As an example, one in North America can use SKYPE to make a free phone all over the land of North America. Complemented with ubiquitous stationary telephone sets, these devices facilitate the communication between people to a great extent.
While the popularity of such communication products has brought to us plenty of convenience and quickness, noise pollution caused by their ringing deteriorates with unconstrained use of such communication terminals. For example, thanks to the unregulated use of these communication products, the atmosphere of silence and solemnity in various public places, such as office, conference room, classroom, library and presentation hall, is severely spoiled, leading to disturbance with the normal processes of some activities.
A variety of measures have been proposed in the prior art, with the purpose of counteracting the noise pollution caused by the ringing of communication terminals. One scheme is to dispose a dedicated device within a certain regions requiring quietness, which sets all mobile phones in this region to a silence mode by sending a control signal. Such mandatory approach, that is, switching all mobile phones to a silence mode, is hardly accepted by most users. Besides, mobile phones usually differ from one manufacture to another, and therefore, the above scheme cannot be universally implemented if some phones reject the control signal from the dedicated device.
Another scheme is that a RF (Radio Frequency) transmitter is employed to transmit a non-audio RF mechanism or control signal. Upon the reception of such non-audio mechanism or control signal, a cell phone and/or pager forbids automatically its function of audio alarm and informs its user of an incoming call with blinking light or vibration; when there is no non-audio mechanism or control signal coming again or after a constant predefined period has elapsed, the cell phone and/or pager resumes automatically its normal operation state and indicates the existence of an incoming call with the ringing of the cell or the buzzing of the pager. On the other hand, if the RF transmitter is located far enough from the cell phone and/or pager that the latter cannot receive the above non-audio mechanism or control signal, they will ring as usual.